May 10 The New Agency model and its pitfalls

In a timely article this morning in Adweek, Brian Morrissey and Andrew McMains report on the TBWA\Digital Arts struggle to bridge the divide between a "traditional" and "digital" agency. Things didn't work out as planned apparently -

"The idea was for Omnicom Group's TBWA, never viewed as the most progressive of agency networks in the Web world, to use this roving band of digital geniuses to serve as a center of excellence to help the organization marry its creative with Web savvy. It was to be "advertising at the speed of culture," in DeCourcy's formulation.

The road, however, has been filled with potholes, with several sources saying the initiative has a mixed record. Digital Arts has never cohered at TBWA, they said, beset by the typical agency bureaucratic infighting, turf wars and, perhaps most importantly, the realization that injecting digital into hulking organizations like TBWA is a task much harder than hiring a crew of hotshots. "I don't think everyone in the company had clarity about how it was to work," said a source.

For their part, TBWA executives said Digital Arts has had its ups and downs.

"We played with certain things, we experimented with certain things, and some of it has worked and some of it hasn't," said TBWA Worldwide CEO Tom Carroll. "We get better every day. We learn more every day."

It's rather amazing that we are still discussing this divide at all these days. You can read the whole article here.